As described in “T. Yoshihara et al., “Realization of very-small aberration projection lenses”, Proc. SPIE 2000, Vol. 4000-52” and Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 11-176744, the projection optical system of a semiconductor exposure apparatus is prepared through the first step of measuring optical characteristics, the second step of calculating an adjustment amount for properly correcting various aberrations of the projection optical system on the basis of the measured optical characteristics, and the third step of actually adjusting or processing the projection optical system in accordance with the adjustment amount.
Most of aberrations to be corrected change in proportion to the adjustment amount of each part. In order to minimize the maximum absolute value of each aberration, the adjustment amount of each part is determined by a method to which linear programming is applied (Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2002-367886).
However, a change in wavefront aberration which is one of important aberrations cannot be expressed as the linear function of the adjustment amount of each part. The method disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2002-367886 cannot calculate optimal adjustment amounts for various aberrations including the wavefront aberration.